Thursday, 13 December 2012

Statistics from TM showed that between January and October last year, there were 8,604 cable theft cases nationwide amounting to losses of about RM38.79mil.

TM Federal Territory general manager R. Manivannan said anyone could collect the reward money as long as the culprit was convicted.

“We are offering the reward to help curb cable thefts,” he said at the launch of a cable theft prevention campaign together with city police here yesterday.

Manivannan said between January and October this year, 63 cable theft cases were reported in Kuala Lumpur, leading to losses of RM890,000.

“This is almost twice the 30 cases reported last year with losses estimated at RM471,927,” he said.

Manivannan added that copper cables are worth about RM300 per metre on the black market and stealing them is relatively easy.“The only know-how a thief needs is which manhole to access in order to get to the underground cables,” he said.

He added that the 1Watch alarm system enabled TM personnel to be alerted when the cables were being tampered with.

“The system can pinpoint where the thefts are occurring in real time.

“When a theft occurs, we relay the information to our auxiliary police units and also to the relevant police district.

“The reward system, however, is aimed at increasing the number of eyes and ears in combating cable theft,” said Manivannan.

Selangor topped the list with 2,023 cases amounting to about RM10.1mil in losses followed by Kelantan with 1,257 cases (RM5.14mil) and Kedah/Perlis with 1,195 cases (RM5mil) between January and October this year.

Last year a total of 1,841 cases were recorded in Selangor (RM7.94mil) with Perak recording 2,087 cases (RM5.75mil) followed by Kedah/Perlis with 1,776 cases (RM5.55mil).